The Cantankerous Cavalier
by Lord Xavius
Summary: The name's Kled. Now, I don't like trespassers - heck, I downright hate 'em - but a certain little band of 'em came strolling through my land one day. See, them group of sneaky-sneaks are apparently lookin' fer something of importance in an old tomb, or crypt, or somethin' like that, and it's sittin' on my property. Might as well see fer myself if it's that important, eh Skaarl?
1. Chapter 1: Takin' a Stroll

"AND THAT'S WHY YA DUMB, LILY-LIVERED SONS OF GUNS BETTER SHOVE OFF, AND NEVER COME BACK! YA HERE ME? NE-!" I screamed at the enemy a final time, just as my entire world around me seemed to collapse in on itself and become swirled in a torrent of darkness. The picture in my fiery head of the battle of Deadhand's Fall disappeared in an instant as I felt myself impact against something solid. The fleeing enemy soldiers. The no-good trespassers trying to hit me with their insignificant weapons. Skaarl. All of it vanished in that single moment, and my eyes opened to the sight of the ceiling.

I had fallen out of bed. Mumbling some curses to myself, I stood up off of the floorboards and looked to the window. Morning sunlight showed through it and that was enough to tell me that it was time to get up. Licking my tongue through my sharpened teeth and running it across my lips, I let my tired mind come awake and think of what should be done next.

With nothing better to do, I set out to to change from my night clothes. After getting dressed in my war attire, the last thing I put on was my sturdy helmet. Knocking a fist against it, I heard a sound _plunk_ that I couldn't help but grin at. I went to collect the last thing I needed for the day, while I reminisced on my life so far.

Living out in the northern plains was a simple endeavor. For me, anyhow. Find food here, kill a trespasser there, feed Skaarl said trespasser here... it was a pretty good life. With challenges that would make unseasoned greenhorns piss their britches with fear that _I_ got to face on a daily basis, there wasn't much to be bored by. It was around this moment I came across my pocket pistol sitting over my aged, cracked, mahogany desk.

I had many a good time with this trusty weapon. Like that one time a I ran into an enormous, rabid dire wolf. Damn thing scared my lizard Skaarl, who threw me from my saddle and ran for the hills like the cowardly steed she was. After giving that disease-addled creature the rundown of who was boss with my own two bare hands, I finished it with a shot to the temple. Put up a hell of a fight, but made a good meal. Skaarl certainly seemed to think so, once he came back.

Shoving the thing into its holster by my side, I made my way to the front door and opened it with a squeak of its hinges. The first shape to greet my good eye was Skaarl, who was lying on her back on the dirt ground with one leg kicking in the air as she dreamed whatever lizards dream of. Probably food, or something.

"Hey there, Skaarl," I greeted, gaining her attention. My loyal steed woke up instantly, jumped to her feet and turned to me; the lizard's face showing her typical dumb, wide-eyed expression and frill raising around her neck. Making a purring noise, Skaarl's head tilted curiously.

"Waghfla?"

I chuckled. "Nah, not yet, but you'll eat soon. We gotta go out and find us s'more land first. Gotta make sure none of them flea-bitten, no good, trespassin' sneaky-sneaks is attemptin' to take it from us."

She chattered her teeth together as I yoinked my axe out of the dry, nearby ground I had planted it in the day previously and approached her, placing my free hand on the horn of the saddle resting on her back. Hopping on, I made sure my pistol was set and canteen was filled a final time before Skaarl voiced her disagreement.

"Freeglarg."

"Shut yer hole, ya dumb lizard," I mumbled. Hitting his rump a single time with the tip of my trusty weapon, the lizard began bounding forward on her two long, muscular legs, leaving my house behind and entering the mostly-barren, tall grass-covered terrain in front of it. The shapes of the snow-tipped Ironspike Mountains sat far away in the distance, many, many miles away. It always felt good to look over what was rightfully mine from time to time.

"This way!" I said to her, pointing to where I wanted to go. Without an argument to make, Skaarl began taking us northward with a spring in her step and a twinkle in her wide eyes.

Dag nabbit, I love this lizard.

* * *

Some time later on our trek through the plains, Skaarl and I were still going strong. Most things looked nothing out of the ordinary, and we didn't come across anything of great importance so far. Any critters that saw us stroll by ran off or hid in their holes except for the birds, which just looked down on us with what I'm willing to reckon was jealous disdain. The sun rose high in the sky, and we continued onward. As we reached the top of a large hill and looked down it, something big finally came into my view, causing me to frown and growl.

It appeared to be an encampment of sorts, lying at the base of the hill. There were three large tents of a tan-brown color, much like the rock scattered at random in these plains. Without a second thought, I jumped from Skaarl's back and ducked behind a large nearby boulder, followed by Skaarl herself.

"Ya know who they is, Skaarl?" I whispered, taking out the hollow gourd filled with mushroom juice from the back of my belt. "I got no earthly idea. I _do_ know they ain't s'posed to be here, since this is my land and all, but who they are is another question entirely."

"Skralg!" she chirped, before her attention was stolen away by a big fat bogfly that began buzzing around her head, to which she promptly snapped up. I shifted her a low-browed, sideways glance and raised the brow over my good eye.

"Whattaya mean you think they's just a bunch of friendly people lookin' fer something? Nobody here's friendly! Not even them fuzzy ground squirrels we always see poppin' out of 'em holes in the ground! Come on, Skaarl. Even you know that."

He merely gave me back an innocent look and let his tongue fall out of his mouth as he watched me take a quick chug of my juice, before popping the cork back over it and hooking it back up to my side. "Gralkwarg! Kugo?"

Hearing her vividly through my furry ears, I couldn't help but chuckle. "Yeah, yeah you're probably right... sorry buddy." The two of us just continued to observe what went on down below. As I watched the few figures set up their cozy, stupid little camp, I tried my darndest to figure who they was. Now, I've seen Noxians - hell, _I'm_ a Noxian - and these were most definitely, one-hundred percent _not_ Noxians. They looked so... shiny, fancy and full of happiness as they went around and fixed parts of their camp. They practically reeked of smugness! Must be them thrice-damned, fancy-pantsed city folk from Demacia. Or Ionia. Or Piltover. Never did like any of them.

"Say, Skaarl. You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" I asked her next. She turned to me as I gave off a large, wicked smile. "Let's go and... er... 'give them our foremost greetings'. It's about time I got ya some lunch, eh?"

With that, I hopped onto my steed with a quick leap. As I got her to move out of the cover with an extra hard crack on the behind with the butt of my axe, screeching in excitement, Skaarl jumped into the air and curled into a ball. As she began to bounce forward and picked up speed to rival a bounding boxordoth, I balanced myself over her rolling form by continuously hopping. I stretched the axe in one of my hands back and pointed a finger forward with the other in as menacing of a manner as I could convey, letting loose a battle cry of my own.

" _CHAAAAAAAARGE!_ " I screamed so loudly that the wind flying around me began to distort, the air leaving my lungs fully but coming back the next time I took in a deep, hate-filled breath. " _TAKE NO PRISONEEEERS!_ "


	2. Chapter 2: Trespassers

Hoisting the log over one shoulder with incredulous strength unbefitting of her size, heavily armored shape of the yordle Poppy reentered the encampment; her white hair and the two long pigtails it possessed swaying around in the brittle wind. What little flesh was exposed was covered in very light, blue-colored fur. Humming a cheerful tune to herself, she passed by the human Ezreal, who couldn't help but gaze in awe at her raw power.

"Need... any help with that?" the prodigal explorer inquired sincerely as the meter-tall warrior walked by, adjusting the goggles that sat over his short, blonde hair with a hand.

"Nah," she chuckled nonchalantly, flashing him a confident smile on her girlish face and showing off her fang-like snaggletooth that hung down from her upper left lip. "This is nothing, really. My hammer weighs _way_ more."

Ezreal took her word for it, and as Poppy tried to find a good spot to place the makeshift seat she passed by one of the tents and Teemo, another yordle, who stood nearby with an open map in his small hands. Busily, he inspected the land. Unlike the females of his kind, his body was completely covered in thick, creamy brown fur. The helmet he wore covered most of his head, and on his face was a pair of darker brown patches of fur over his easygoing eyes while he also possessed a single, triangular dot for a nose. Despite his affable appearance, he was a mostly quiet individual, as his allies found out.

Tent flaps from one of the three tents opening beside him, the youthful shape of the human Luxanna Crownguard emerged, otherwise known by everyone who knew her as 'Lux' for short. Her golden hair fell above her shoulders at a medium length, and a radiant smile that never seemed to leave her face. A small staff rested hand, the object of which helped her direct where her precise, well-honed, and deadly if-need-be light spells went.

Unlike the simple, worn brown jacket and pants Ezreal wore, Lux had a small set of light, regal armor of a steel complexion covering much of her upper body, quite befitting of one of the kingdom of Demacia's greatest battlemages, despite her young age. Walking out, she came across Teemo, and he turned to her expectantly.

"So Teemo," she started, "do we have a course set from here?"

"Mm-hm," the swift scout replied with a nod and a crescent-shaped smile, rolling the map up and placing it into the satchel of other rolled-up papers behind his back. The satchel lied next to where he kept a his weapon of choice hooked up - a dart-spewing blowpipe. "We should be able to get there in another five days, if the weather remains as it is."

"Thanks," she said, bowing her head to him in grattitude. The yordle gave her a small salute before walking off, and she did the same. Wandering through the camp only a few feet, passing the other two tents, she spotted Ezreal sitting on the log Poppy had placed in front of what was to soon become where the campfire would go. Rubbing a hand across her chin, Lux approached him and sat beside him on the log. His face turned to hers in acknowledgment.

"Everything looks set for the night," Lux was the first to speak. "Tent's up, provisions are good, and the path is clear. And as far as I know, things look bright for tomorrow."

"You sure about that?" Ezreal said, before looking to the clear sky above them. "It could always rain..."

"Oh, please," she lightly laughed, playfully punching her friend in the shoulder. It seemed to be a tad bit harder than intended, as Ezreal appeared to wince back in reaction and rub his limb sorely. There was a still mien about his face, and Lux knew Ezreal long enough to know something was eating at his mind.

"What's the matter?" she asked next.

"Just that... I've been talking to myself about something regarding the purpose of our expedition," he answered. "That 'Blade of the Darkin' we're looking for has me thinking more than I usually do about my explorations. 'A weapon said to be capable of both starting and ending wars in a single swing'..."

"Does this have something to do with the Noxians again?" Lux said with a roll of her blue eyes.

"I can't imagine what could happen if they launched a voyage similar to ours," Ezreal went on. "If Noxus is after that weapon at this very moment too, whether it truly does exist or not, we're going to be in a serious mess if and when we run into them."

"I don't see that happening," Lux mentioned. "After all, we snagged the plans out from under their noses and created this expedition while the Noxian aristocracy was still arguing over who got to design and execute it. Trust me, Ezreal. It was _yours truly_ who did it."

"I know, but do you know what untold amount of devastation the Noxians could commit if they're after it and the legends about it are true?" he stated again, anxiously rubbing a hand over the ancient Shuriman amulet that he had clamped over his left hand; the object providing the source of his amplified sorcerous power he was famed for. "I'd hate to imagine what would happen..."

"Come on. Don't be so melodramatic," she said back with an easy flick of the wrist. "Even if they are on our level, the odds of any of them having gotten as far ahead as us anyway are minuscule at best. Don't let it keep you down, Ezreal."

"I hope you're right. And just thinking about it makes me glad I've got you with me on this journey," Ezreal said, comforted only slightly by her words.

"Like I would pass up an opportunity to get out of Demacia for a few weeks?" she said back with a small chuckle. The two smiled to each other, but no sooner had their conversation ended, Lux suddenly lifted her head in an alert way.

"Did you hear that?" she asked.

"Hear what?" Ezreal asked back.

"It sounded like... somebody _shouting_ ," she said, obviously worried. "It can't be the wind. It sounded far too clear..." No sooner had she finished her sentence, Ezreal took notice of the ground below them as it began to vibrate.

"Ezreal..." the lady of luminosity spoke uneasily.

" _TAKE NO_ _PRISONEEEERS!_ " a rowdy, strained and high-pitched voice cried in the distance behind them, getting closer with ever half-second to pass. Quickly looking over their shoulders, Ezreal and Lux saw a startling sight that made their eyes open in surprise. It looked like small shape, riding another shape that was bounding toward the camp in a rolled-up ball. And a jolt of fear went about Ezreal's whole being when he realized it was almost upon them.

"Get down!" he shouted, pouncing at Lux and throwing them both from the log. Just as they hit the ground, a blur of rapid movement went out overhead, and those two shapes went flying through the air with a final leap that took the second, reptilian creature out of its spinning form. With a cry of insane laughter, the two beings impacted against two of the freshly-erected tents like a cannonball, effortlessly demolishing them and reducing them to a pile of twisted poles and torn cloth.

"GET OFFA MY PROPERTY YA LOUSY VARMINTS!" the short creature that rode the other screamed in a crazed voice, whacking the weapon he held against the remains of one of the shelters, and then eyeing the last remaining one with a predatory glare. Neither Ezreal nor Lux could make out what exactly he was in the flurry of violence that went by, but the strange steed looked like a large, two-legged lizard with a simple expression on its cross-eyed face. Two ear-like projections lied on either side of its head; clearly a pair of frills of some sort.

From where they lied, Ezreal and Lux looked around for their other two teammates before making a move. Teemo was nowhere in sight; it was as if he had up and vanished. In a flash of movement though, Poppy was then seen, and she was charging into the fray with fearless abandon, her mighty Hammer of Orlon ready for battle and her buckler tied behind her back.

Lifting it over her head as she got closer to the still-laughing lunatic and his pet, Poppy's hammer spun about like a rotating fan, and she seemed to use as much effort with the giant weapon as though it truly _was_ just a fan. With a roar, the massive object smashed into the ground with a clatter to rival the an explosion of thunder, cracking it in a formation that traveled forward, toward the transgressors. Caught unprepared for the upheaval of earth, the two creatures were rocketed into the air and thrown back with an angered cry from the shorter one. When they finally impacted against the ground a dozen meters away, a cloud of dirt and dust was sent into the air.

As the lizard creature got back up without a scratch on its scaly hide, it let out a fearful screech and suddenly bolted away in a panicked manner, leaving whatever was riding it on the dirty, ruined ground, alone. He leapt to his feet, and judging from the words that came spewing out of his mouth at a rapid-fire speed, which were all a string of curses clouded in maddened gibberish, he wasn't very happy.

* * *

"FINE! GO AHEAD AND RUN! I NEVER NEEDED YOU, NO-HOW!" I screamed at the fleeing beast. Skaarl didn't even turn back to acknowledge my words as I saw the last of her vanish through the tall grass. Thing about them drakolopses, they may be immortal and unkillable, but they run at the slightest sign of danger. Grumbling to myself, I lifted my axe from the ground and looked around. The camp was a good distance away from me when I spied my good eye over to it, but there was also a small character running to me that made my blood begin to boil.

She was that yordle that went and tossed Skaarl and I. Besides that gigantic hammer, impressive armor, and those long pigtails she had, there was one other distinguishing feature on her being. Hanging from top of the left side of her mouth, poking out of her lip like a cat's fang was an irregularly-shaped tooth of sorts that looked sorta familiar to my addled head. There seemed to be a look of shock that came over her face as she looked at me.

"You're a yordle?" she asked. Snorting, I spat out a wad of green saliva that hit the ground to my side.

"Sure am. And I can see you're one too!" I chuckled heartily. "Don't mean I'll treat ya any differently than all them other trespassers coming on my land, attempting to tarnish it with yer filth."

" _Your_ land?" she inquired in a way that seemed confused, lying the head of her hammer to the ground with a healthy _thump_ as she listened to me. "You mean to tell me you own this area?"

"Of course! And not _just_ this area! This is _all_ my land! Everything you see before you is _my_ land! It begins where I walk! It ends where the sun don't shine!"

The look in the yordle's purple eyes and the vertical pupils they possessed conveyed nothing but more confusion. "Are you... alright?" she whispered to me, saying yet another question.

"Right as rain! Unlike you in just a minute..." I growled back, bringing the blade of my axe close to my face and running one of my fingers across its extra-sharp tip.

"Ugh... Listen," she sighed in a calm, controlled voice. "We can talk this out."

"Well pardon me," said I, "but from where _I'm_ standin', there's fixin' to be only two sounds! Me hitting you, and _BIYAYAHGUH!_ "

I charged at her as fast as my short, aged legs could carry me, boots scuffing against the ground and axe raised over my head, looking for some sweet blood to be soaked in. The yordle also ran forward with a booming cry, her massive weapon reeled back and ready to be let loose. Both of us swinging at the same time in the tall grass, my axe struck against her hammer, shedding several orange sparks in the process.

I reeled my axe back and tried to hit her. Then I did it again. And again. And each time, that yordle hit it back with her hammer or blocked it with the buckler she pulled out. After a few more hits she seemed to have enough, and unleashed an attack of her own that I couldn't deflect. I gotta admit, feeling the weight of that massive hammer slam as hard as it could into my ribs hurt, but it was a good pain. Either way it sent me flying back several feet, where I landed noisily onto the ground on my back.

"Of course, you know this means _war_ ," I grumbled, fixing my helmet and wiping some dry saliva from my lip before jumping back to my feet with some effort. I charged at her again and had my weapon ready for the coming brawl. Of course, I knew she thought this move would be no different than my last several ones, but this time I had a trick on my belt.

Whipping my pocket pistol out and pointing it at her, I pulled the trigger as I was almost upon her and sent a bullet at her that exploded into a series of pellets. The recoil from the weapon pushed me back a few feet, but I stayed on my legs. As my boots skidded to a stop in the dirt, I looked back at my enemy and couldn't help but grin when I saw she had been both surprised, and apparently stunned by the bullets, but that armor she had left her completely unharmed.

And so I ran forward and raised my axe over my head, screaming aloud the highest profanity them brain weasels taught me. I was so close to killing just another trespasser on my land. I was almost upon her now, and she was only just recovering, to my earnest delight. I prepared to launch my blade forward and end her life.

Then, like a sting from a hook-tailed wasp, I felt a sharp prick in the side of my neck. Stopping in my latest charge, I began to stumble back as my vision darkened into a dull blur. The yordle in front of me faded, and it was then I noticed what was wrong with me. Screaming like an injured dog, I began to swing my axe around my blinded self at random, hoping to hit someone, _anyone_ as I dizzily shuffled about, lamenting the fact that now _both_ my eyes had the same amount of perception now.

I was blind.


End file.
